Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum TSI in hardwoods to improve hunting

I have a block of hardwoods on my property, roughly 70 acres, that I would like to do some TSI in. I plan to leave some of it untouched but would like to thin a good bit of it and sell the timber. The money would help with some other projects, but my main goal is to open the canopy and allow more sunlight to come in. I also would like to do some burning in the hardwoods in future years.

Anybody have any experience or advice with this? Dos and don’t for the logging crew? Things I should consider?

https://www.aldeer.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3981305#Post3981305

Got to be super mindful of fire conditions in bottomland hardwoods

Jdfarm23, I do this all the time. I’ve got 4 landowners going through commercial harvest or chemical TSI now. Here are some pics of one we did last year with recent results. The key is having VERY clear communication with the timber buyer/logging crew. You must be there every step of the way because most of them see dollar trees and you’re seeing wildlife benefit. Burning in upland hardwoods is something I do every year. It’s fine when conducted properly. I rarely burn bottomland hardwoods, but it can also be done, with more consideration.
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Mbrock, what are the main differences between burning bottomland hardwood vs. upland? I’m doing a project on my place, removing sweetgum mostly, and have intention to burn every two or three years eventually.

Operator select operations in good hardwood stands are always tricky due to what MBrock mentioned. If you have the resources and contacts, I'd suggest getting a consultant to mark and sell the timber for you. Paint on trees with butt marks are pretty solid prep work to ensure that what you want cut gets cut and what you want to stay stays.

Two things to remember. If its a fairly dense stand, the equipment will need room to work and not skin up the leave trees. The loggers will almost always need to cut corridors through the stand to allow for adequate access (similar to pine plantations). Harwood tree tops are usually bigger than pine, so unless they are topping them where felled, the skid rows will need to be a bit wider than usual to accommodate the woolier tops coming back to the deck.

Secondly, be prepared to have a solid vegetation mgmt plan ready to go in the years following the cut if you want to try to maintain the herbaceous ground layers. Specifically, something that will handle the robust hardwood stump sprouts that will most certainly come.

Species composition........ the bottomland species will likely be more susceptible to fire damage

There is a hardwood mgmt workshop in Cullman next week. I will be attending. Two of the speakers are coming in from TN and KY that work solely in hardwood mgmt. Hopefully there will be some good "working" and "practical" knowledge shared to assist with this type stuff rather than pine folks who have read a chapter out of the hardwood mgmt manual.

Damn that's harsh......

Yeah it is.... I put myself in that caregory too. I have dabbled in hardwoods before, but I'm a long ways from being anywhere near the expert level that foresters in TN and KY exhibit.

Just for the sake of conversation on here……How would you generally approach a situation like this?......I would think you would have a target density you were trying to take the stand back to by selecting for trash trees as well as some of the “ripe fruit” that isnt beneficial to wildlife……..Leaving something that could grow into another merchantable cut in the future……Is that about right?.......What are the main considerations someone should be aware of?.......Maybe getting it too thin and causing wind throw and epicormic branching…..or taking out all the quality and leaving just trash??

No way I’d let someone thin my hardwoods unless me or someone I trusted marked it first.
Mark your own corridors, then mark the trees to come out or leave, which ever is less.

I have used modified diameter select cuts. Its logical to me, but im not a hardwood guru as i confessed above. Unlike even aged pine stands where the canopy is essentially at one level above the ground, hardwood stands usually have upper, mid, and understories you have to deal with to get sunlight on the ground. Those pesky slower growing shade tolerant species 'gum up' the space between the bottom of the dominant canopy and ground level.

Essentially, you thin from below taking out all the smaller, overtopped, shade tolerant trees. Then take out a portion of the dominants and codominants that make up the meat of the canopy. You leave the bigger, healthy intermediates and codominants (and some dominants) that will grow to the dominant class in the following decades. That takes out most of the under and midstory and some of the bigger, better trees to make the gaps and openings you want.

You have to be careful to offer enough wood volume to make the sale appeal to buyers/loggers. You can't expect them to thin through 2 or 3 acres before they have a load. The loggers have to be able to make a living and haul enough loads per day to make it profitable to them. If you fail to offer enough wood, its all academic because nobody will ever buy it. If the timber is of extreme quality with a lot of high dollar logs, you can get away with a lighter volume per acre sale.

I say again, I am no expert hdwd manager. I have done a few of what I have described above and the results more or less met the goals of the TSI action. Making a sale like that happen is not terribly hard as long as you have enough volume at the start to make the sale go and still have enough residual timber standing afterwards to meet your goals. Its really only viable in mature hardwood stands with a lot of smaller-diameter overtopped and intermediate volumes. Most buyers say they need a minimum of 1 load per acre to make everything work.. you have to make sure through careful inventory work beforehand that you have enough timber to work with before starting.

More info ? Cost, location, date ?

Wind throw is a risk with any thinning operation.. the heavier the thin, the more risk. Epicormic branching is a risk as well for hdwds. There are ways to mitigate the risks, certain species and level of vigor prior to thinning are factors. And of course thinning intensity has a lot to do with it, but I cannot speak to that as well as others with more experience might. Hence why I am attending that workshop.

Do you have an idea of the stand makeup??......Meaning, what percentage of the trees are oak, poplar, sweetgum, etc??

Percentages are a rough estimate but say at least 50% oak (mostly water/red and some pockets of white oak), 15% sweetgum, 10% pine, and the remaining 25% would be a mix of poplar, hickory, dogwood, elm, magnolia, etc

Those are all good points. Sounds like you have been in my shoes before. I am worried that selling the timber may be an issue simply due to the fact that I am not wanting to heavily thin. I would be curious to hear roughly what % of trees you removed. I would like to reduce the stand density by 30% or so…but am afraid that may provide enough timber to attract a buyer.

That looks good Matt. And yes, we would have to be very involved in the timber cutting and specific about our vision for how this looks when it is complete. What advice do you have on how many/which trees to cut, etc? Any specific rules to make for the loggers? I’m still trying to put together a plan.